Monday, April 17, 2017

Most Federal Reserve policymakers think the central bank should take steps to begin trimming its $4.5 trillion balance sheet later this year as long as the economic data holds up, minutes from their last meeting showed…

Provided that the economy continued to perform about as expected, most participants anticipated that gradual increases in the federal funds rate would continue and judged that a change to the Committee’s reinvestment policy would likely be appropriate later this year,” the Fed said in its minutes.

This is the public spectacle – where tiny and often trivial bits of real news are conflated with vast myths and illusions.

The Fed fiddles with short-term interest rates… President Trump tweets a threat to the Freedom Caucus… the GOP proposes a new health-care plan…

You can’t know what any of these “facts” mean without reference to a huge body of non-facts – beliefs, ideas, and prejudices, many of them absurd.

Remember, a “myth” is not necessarily untrue; it just can’t be tested or disproven.

And since reality is infinitely complex, and a myth can only reflect a small trace of it… no matter how attractive or “true” it is, the myth always leaves out more truth than it describes.

As darkness settled in over the southern Chesapeake Bay last night, Maryland State Police Aviation Command Trooper 4, based in Salisbury, received a call for assistance from the US Coast Guard in a search for a boat taking on water with two people aboard. The boat was reported to be disabled and swamped. The crew of Trooper 4 immediately launched and headed toward the area.

While still on their way to the coordinates, the Trooper 4 pilot-in-charge saw a faint light in the water through his night vision goggles. Activating the forward-looking infra-red on the aircraft, the crew was able to spot the sinking vessel while still four miles away. The Trooper 4 crew immediately notified the US Coast Guard and the Accomack County Sheriff’s Office rescue boat of the location of the vessel.

After verifying the two people were still onboard the boat, Trooper 4 began an orbit overhead and illuminated the scene with the TrakkaBeam spotlight. The crew of the Accomack County Sheriff’s Office rescue boat used the spotlight to guide them to the disabled boat. Trooper 4 continued to light the scene as the two people were transferred to the sheriff’s boat and transported to safety.

The men and women of the Maryland State Police Aviation Command are proud to staff state-of-the-art aircraft that provide search and rescue, medevac, law enforcement and homeland security services to the people of our state and allied public safety agencies. The MSP Aviation Command is only a part of Maryland’s world renowned integrated emergency medical services system that is known as the best in the world.

A controversial Muslim professor in Florida has resigned from her position.

In March, Areej Zufari, a humanities professor at Rollins College was confronted by one of her students after she said the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was a “hoax” and that Christ’s disciples did not believe he was God.

Sophomore Marshall Polston, 20, said that, as a Christian, the remarks were “unsettling.”

“It was very off-putting and flat out odd. I’ve traveled the Middle East, lectured at the Salahaddin University, and immersed myself in Muslim culture for many years,” Polston told the Central Florida Post. “Honestly, it reminded me of some of the more radical groups I researched when abroad.”

President Trump is threatening to cut off critical Obamacare payments to insurers unless Democrats come to the table to negotiate a new health care bill, taking a tough negotiating stance that could force Democratic leaders into a government shutdown by month’s end.

At stake are “cost sharing” payments that Obamacare backers say are supposed to be made to insurance companies to cover their losses from low-income customers.

A federal court has invalidated the payments, saying the Obama administration spent the money even though Congress specifically stripped the funds from its annual spending bills.

The government is still making the payments pending an appeal of the case, but Mr. Trump hinted last week that he would halt the payments himself, forcing Obamacare into a quick death unless Democrats agree to negotiate over major changes to the Affordable Care Act.

China issued a blunt warning to North Korea on Wednesday — telling its belligerent ally to not conduct nuclear weapons or missile tests, or it was likely to face military action by the US.

“Not only [is] Washington brimming with confidence and arrogance following the missile attacks on Syria, but Trump is also willing to be regarded as a man who honors his promises,” said the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s official paper.

North Korea should halt any plans for nuclear and missile tests “for its own security,” the newspaper said, making it clear that the US would not “co-exist” with a nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

North Korean state media threatened a nuke attack on America at any sign of aggression, as a US Navy aircraft carrier and several destroyers and cruisers steamed toward the Korean Peninsula — a force which President Trump described as an “armada.”

Sometime around November, word began to trickle back down the spine of Latin America: The U.S. was getting stricter about letting in Haitians at the border.

Not only had the Obama administration begun deporting Haitians after a six-year humanitarian pause, but President Trump also had just been elected, presaging an even tougher policy.

Many of those en route, such as the hundreds staged at migrant camps in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, figured they had gone that far and had little to lose by trying to finish the journey north.

But for the tens of thousands of Haitians in Brazil, Chile and elsewhere in South America who had been planning to journey north, the news was devastating. In a matter of weeks, the northward stream of people dried up.

Chris Davis once asked his grandfather to buy him lunch. Grandpa said no and told him how he could turn the missed lunch into $1,000.

It’s no secret that a dollar today isn’t worth the same as a dollar 30 years from now. Year by year, inflation eats away at that dollar in your piggy bank. The good news is that smart investing more than makes up for inflation’s effects.

Chris Davis, chairman and portfolio manager of Davis Advisors, learned the lesson at a young age. In a recent interview with Barron’s, Davis recalled a time he skipped lunch to attend a meeting with his grandfather and afterwards asked for a dollar to buy a hot dog. The grandfather explained that Davis could spend a dollar on the hot dog now, or he could watch it grow to be worth $1,000 by the time he reached his golden years.

“I actually went back and did the calculation, and he was just about exactly right,” Davis says. (We did our own math and $1 invested at an admittedly aggressive 12% amounts to $1,005 after 61 years.)

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Netflix has announced that it will release a seven-part documentary series called “The Keepers” next month, which will explore the unsolved murder of Baltimore nun Sister Cathy Cesnik.

Sister Cathy, who was 26 when she died, taught at Southwest Baltimore’s Archbishop Keough High School.

In the 60s and 70s, Father Joseph Maskell, a counselor at the school, was accused of molesting dozens of students — mostly women.

A WJZ investigation revealed many of those victims confided in Sister Cathy just before her shocking murder nearly 50 years ago.

Americans now owe $1 trillion in credit card debt, with an average monthly balance of about $9,600 for borrowers who don’t pay their cards in full each month.

A year ago, a credit card holder making only minimum payments shelled out about $1,185 in annual interest, on average, said Ben Woolsey ofCreditCards.com.

After three quarter-point hikes by the Federal Reserve — a cost that banks pass on almost immediately to card holders — credit card borrowers are now forking over $1,254, or $69 more a year, in interest, on average.

Two more rate hikes are on the table for 2017, which would bring the total to $1,301, or $116 a year in interest.

Salisbury, MD ... The recently negotiated and executed Fire Service Agreement between the City of Salisbury and Wicomico County departs from a negotiated stipend basis and is based on a negotiated fee for service schedule. It does not differentiate between paid staff and volunteer staff.

The assertion that the county has defunded the volunteers is very misleading as both paid and volunteer fire fighters in the City are under the direction of the Fire Chief and Mayor as stipulated in Article 18-3 of the City Charter.

This small, green insect has spread to every county west of the Chesapeake Bay, and to Queen Anne’s, Talbot, and Dorchester counties on the Eastern Shore.

In addition to ecological and economic damage, EAB infestation can cause ash trees to snap, creating safety hazards where ash are growing near homes or streets.

“Now is the time to act to save your ash trees,” said Colleen Kenny, forest health watershed planner for theMaryland Forest Service. “The first indicators that you might have EAB are increased woodpecker damage and thinning foliage. However, you should not wait until you see signs of damage to begin treatment.”

For most of Maryland, the most effective treatments are trunk injections of emamectin benzoate, which must be conducted by a licensed pesticide applicator. Treatments are most effective when applied early to healthy trees. Once a tree has lost about one-third of its foliage, it is usually too late to treat.

For many Eastern Shore residents, treatment is not practical. Anyone who does not or cannot apply treatments should remove infested trees promptly. Also, firewood should be burned only near where it is bought instead of moved from one area to another.

At the time of Prince’s death, his Paisley Park home and recording compound were strewn with “a sizable amount” of narcotic painkillers for which he did not have prescriptions, including some hidden in over-the-counter vitamin and aspirin bottles and others issued in the name of a close aide, according to newly released court documents related to the investigation into the accidental opioid overdose that killed Prince last year.

OCEAN CITY — With a state-mandated post-Labor Day start to the public school year in place in Maryland, the Ocean City Beach Patrol (OCBP) has a plan in place to expand coverage in late August when the season typically drops off.

Last year, Gov. Larry Hogan issued an executive order mandating public schools in Maryland return after Labor Day after previous legislative remedies stalled. As a result, most school systems in Maryland will now return after Labor Day, achieving the desired goal of expanding the summer season. It’s important to note there is a waiver process for schools wanting to return in August and although some have applied for the waiver for a variety of reasons, it appears most counties in Maryland will return to school in September.

The summer season in Ocean City drops off the last two weeks in August with most school systems in the region opening. As a result, the OCBP, which suffers an employee drain of its own as many of its officers are educators, scales back it coverage in the waning weeks of summer before Labor Day. With the post-Labor Day school start expected to expand the summer season, the beach patrol has a plan in place to ensure the beach is safely covered for more visitors.

Americans are stuck. Locked into our jobs, rooted where we live, frozen at our income levels. More than at any previous point in our history, we’ve stopped moving — whether moving up the income ladder or packing up a truck and finding another home. We’ve grown ossified, rigid.

The flip side is that we’re stable. If we weren’t so content, we’d be more willing to gamble, to shake things up, to start a new firm or join one. Maybe we’re fine where we are. But maybe this period of stasis cannot last. Maybe it even portends a period of massive disruption.

In “The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream,” economist Tyler Cowen presents an X-ray of societal sclerosis. This isn’t merely another exercise in nostalgia, a sentimental yearning for a bygone era (when, for instance, crime and pollution were higher, people were highly likely to marry someone who lived within five blocks and you would buy an album containing 10 lousy songs because you liked one track). Something has changed in the American character and in the American economy, and the two seem to be reinforcing each other.

WASHINGTON — Brutal and wasteful. That’s how supporters of a ban on a fishing tournament targeting the cownose ray describe annual contests that encourage participants to kill the rays that nurse their pups in the Chesapeake Bay.

But contest supporters say they’re needed to curb the ray population: Watermen insist the rays arrive in droves and scoop up oysters like vacuum cleaners.

Both sides testified in hearings before a Maryland Senate committee during the General Assembly session in Annapolis.

Dennis Fleming, who runs a fishing guide business, told lawmakers that “killing an animal for fun, and then throwing it into a dumpster to rot, goes against everything I’ve ever been taught about respect for the Chesapeake Bay.”

Maybe you’re looking for a fresh start. Or perhaps you’re looking to find a different job, or you’re trying to get out of the city. Whatever the case may be, when you’re looking for a new place to live there’s a lot to consider. And if you’re thinking of crossing state lines to find a new home, there’s one vitally important detail that you need to think about and research.

Most people don’t consider this, but you should really look into the financial stability of any state that you’re thinking about moving to. If worse comes to worse, and the economy collapses, you want to make sure that the state you live in is fiscally responsible. States that have high debts and low credit ratings are living on the edge. Any major economic event could push them into bankruptcy.

That means pensions could go unfunded. Public services like law enforcement and firefighting would be understaffed. The infrastructure of the state would crumble, and public education would be decimated. Taxes would likely be increased, which would only exacerbate the financial problems of the state because businesses would leave, leading to more unemployment and a smaller tax base. Obviously, all of these factors could contribute to the risk of civil unrest.

Sorry for the detail in posting this. The file that was sent to us in email would not open. The file was not uploaded to the city website until today. This is a very large file (168 pages) so it may take longer to display.

Kansas City used to consider marijuana possession a crime that can result in hundreds of dollars in fines and even time behind bars, but after a vote from residents Tuesday, that’s no longer the case.

After an overwhelming vote where nearly 75 percent of Kansas City, Missouri, voters approved the new measure, people caught with small amounts (35 grams or fewer) of marijuana will now only be hit with a $25 fine, and there is no jail time attached to that.

Statewide, the penalty for the same amount of marijuana is fines up to $500 and possible jail time.

The new law also applies to those found with marijuana-related paraphernalia, which used to result in charges, but won’t any longer.

The Cleveland Police is looking for an active shooter, identified as 37-year-old Steve Stephens, who has broadcast a murder live on Facebook. According to Fox 8, he has claimed to have killed other people and says he is looking for more victims.

The murder happened on East 93rd in Cleveland. Police said the shooter broadcasted the deadly shooting live on his social media page and claimed to have committed other homicides. Police are still investigating those claims.

A series of posts Sunday on what authorities said was Stephens' Facebook page complained that he had "lost everything" to gambling. The posts named specific people whom the user wanted to talk to, and at one point he wrote "I killed 12 people today" and wouldn't stop until he could speak to his mother and a second woman.

Later, the user posted: "I killed 15 today because of [the second woman]." The user called it his "Easter day slaughter" according to NBC.

The incident reportedly happened on Sunday afternoon when Stephens began broadcasting live on Facebook, telling viewers that he was looking for someone to kill. A video shows him exiting his vehicle and walking up to a man, who is then shot and killed, seemingly at random. Stephens blamed his girlfriend for his actions and made his victim repeat the woman's name before shooting him. "She's the reason why this is about to happen to you," Stevens told the victim seconds before taking out a gun and shooting him.

The entire Western world is being swamped by an Islamic invasion. But Muslims aren’t coming in uniforms and carrying guns. They’re arriving en masse with the assistance of Western governments.

Some call it refugee resettlement. Others simply believe it is just immigration. Few are willing to call it what it is – an “act of conquest,” according to traditional Islam.

One of those few is Paul Nehlen, producer and director of the new documentary “Hijrah: Radical Islam’s Global Invasion.” Nehlen is best known as the populist Republican who challenged House Speaker Paul Ryan in a primary campaign in 2016. In “Hijrah,” Nehlen provides a compelling examination of the issues surrounding immigration and terrorism he discussed during his bid for office.

A noncitizen has pleaded guilty to voter fraud in Kansas, the state's secretary of state announced.

The Associated Press reported that Victor David Garcia Bebek, a noncitizen, pleaded guilty to three counts of voting unlawfully in 2012 and 2014 and faces up to three years of probation and a $5,000 fine. The complaint on the case obtained by AP, which was kept under wraps until Wednesday, identified six felony and misdemeanor counts.

Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an Indiana-based election integrity group, said the case is noteworthy because some Democrats claim noncitizen voting does not occur.

Kansas is the only state where a secretary of state has prosecution power over election law violations, Churchwell noted.

"Kansas is the only state that vests prosecution power over election law violations with its secretary of state," Churchwell told the Washington Free Beacon. "DAs will not and have exhibited an unwillingness to pursue cases that end in $5,000 fines and unsupervised probation."

Churchwell said other states rely on individuals who commit voter fraud to accidentally out themselves.More

Anti-Trump protesters have taken to the streets all over the U.S. on Saturday to call for President Donald Trump to release his tax returns.

What is not being reported by the mainstream media about this massive march is that most of the organizers and partners are openly funded by George Soros or they have close ties to Soros.

The official website for the Tax March lists the following eight groups as organizers for the event: American Federation of Teachers, Americans for Tax Fairness, Center for Popular Democracy, Indivisible Project, MoveOn.Org, Our Revolution, and The Working Families Party.

Six of those eight groups are either openly funded by George Soros directly or tied to Soros money.

Former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner told a federal court this week that she faces the possibility of death threats if her role in the tax agency’s tea party-targeting becomes public, and asked a judge to forever seal her upcoming deposition in a class-action lawsuit brought by hundreds of groups that were targeted.

Mr. Lerner and Holly Paz, another figure from the IRS tea party targeting, told the judge they’ve already faced “harassment and death threats” before, and said they fear another media firestorm if their version of events from the tea party targeting were to become public.

The two women said they are willing to testify, but said they could be putting “their lives in serious jeopardy.”

“Mss. Lerner and Paz have demonstrated that the public dissemination of their deposition testimony would expose them and their families to harassment and a credible risk of violence and physical harm,” they said in documents submitted by their lawyer to Judge Michael R. Barrett.More

OCEAN CITY — A little over a week after voting to eliminate or at least redirect the $5,000 dedicated as prize money for the first white marlin of the season, the city’s elected officials voted to restore the funding and vowed to work with the fishing community to market and advertise the annual milestone and make it an even bigger and better event.Last week the Mayor and Council voted to eliminate the $5,000 prize citing a perceived lack of importance and interest in the annual milestone. Predictably, the fishing community reacted with what can best be described as outrage in the council’s decision to eliminate the prize in the White Marlin Capital of the World.Various marinas and other businesses rallied to piece together a private sector prize going beyond the city’s annual $5K. It’s important to note the Ocean City Marlin Club already provides a $5k match if the winner is a club member.

Stories about Pepsi, United Airlines and Sean Spicer ticked the “social media storm/online backlash” boxes but none of them stand up

Sean Spicer dressed up as a United Airlines flight attendant holding a can of Pepsi. A hilarious photoshopped dénouement to a week of synthetic outrage. A social media feeding frenzy which began with Pepsi’s much criticised “woke” ad moved through the gears on hearing of the plight of an United Airlines passenger who was “involuntarily deboarded” from a flight and went into overdrive when White House press secretary Sean Spicer used the “N” word. N for Nazi.

Godwin’s law states that as any online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler (“reductio ad Hitlererum”) increases. Spicer’s clumsy attempt to put the actions of Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad into perspective by saying even Hitler didn’t gas his own people brought us climatically to Peak Outrage.

But even in the post-coital glow of offence taken and outrage expressed, we must know we were faking it. Superficially all three stories ticked the “social media storm/online backlash” boxes but none of them stand up. All have meretricious appeal for a system-supportive mindset but none are worthy of more than a shrug of the shoulders.

Soft drink company Pepsi have an ignoble history of ram-raiding youth appeal by signing large cheques for figures such as Michael Jackson, Madonna and Beyonce to shill their sugary syrup for them. Sensing a change in the cultural climate this time out, their newest ad appropriated various U.S. protest movements to position the drink as being down with banner-waving dissent (albeit a very polite and inclusive form of dissent).

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. – In April 2016, Morningside firefighters forced their way into a Temple Hills home on an emergency medical call when the homeowner, Darrell Lumpkin, opened fire.

Nineteen-year-old volunteer firefighter Kevin Swain was critically injured, and has since recovered. His partner, 37-year-old John Ulmschneider of Califonia, Maryland, was killed.

On Friday, Lumpkin was given a 15-year sentence, with all but four suspended. He was only facing jail time for the gun he used, not for the life he took.

The sentencing was moved to a larger court room in Prince George’s County Circuit court because of the many friends, family and firefighters who showed up to support the fallen firefighter and his wife, Dawn.

The epidemic of wilting American college students unable to handle visiting speakers with dangerous, conservative views doesn't appear to be slowing down.

With Notre Dame students feeling "unsafe" at the prospect of Vice President Mike Pence speaking at their commencement, the riots at Berkeley caused by the presence of professional troll Milo Yiannopoulos on campus, and the explosive protest in March against author Charles Murray at Middlebury College that resulted in the assault of a professor, the war on campuses against freedom of expression and hearing opposing views is pervasive and troubling.

The most recent example? Claremont McKenna students shutting down a speaking event for conservative author Heather Mac Donald earlier this month. Her great crime appeared to be authoring a book about a war on police officers in the United States and speaking out about said views.

President Trump is threatening to cut off critical Obamacare payments to insurers unless Democrats come to the table to negotiate a new health care bill, taking a tough negotiating stance that could force Democratic leaders into a government shutdown by month’s end.

At stake are “cost sharing” payments that Obamacare backers say are supposed to be made to insurance companies to cover their losses from low-income customers.

A federal court has invalidated the payments, saying the Obama administration spent the money even though Congress specifically stripped the funds from its annual spending bills.

The government is still making the payments pending an appeal of the case, but Mr. Trump hinted last week that he would halt the payments himself, forcing Obamacare into a quick death unless Democrats agree to negotiate over major changes to the Affordable Care Act.

Donald Trump's characterization of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists during his presidential campaign angered Heidi Sainz, whose family is from Mexico and who has close friends who are immigrants. She was also upset that she couldn't do anything about it at the ballot box because she was a year shy of being able to vote.

Sainz favors a bill in the California Legislature that would lower the voting age to 17, which she thinks would give a voice to more people affected by the outcome of elections.

"Looking at all the protests throughout this year throughout all the high schools across the nation, we could see a lot of the minors were protesting because they felt as if they didn't have a voice," said Sainz, a senior at Inderkum High School in Sacramento.

Lawmakers in more than a dozen states are trying to increase voter participation by targeting young people. Their bills are among nearly 500 pieces of legislation introduced around the country this year to make voting easier, according to a March analysis by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.

While Republican-leaning states have moved to tighten voting rules — nearly 90 such bills have been introduced — those efforts have been outstripped by the number of bills seeking to expand access to the polls.More here

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories claim to have successfully tested an upgraded version of the B61-12 nuclear bomb.

The US has been working on the B61-12 for several years, and government officials say the latest tests are vital to refurbishing efforts.

An F-16 from Nellis Air Force Base in March successfully dropped a zero-yield version of the bomb over the Nevada desert. It left a "neat hole" and crews were able to dig it out of the dirt for further study.

Sandia Stockpile Resource Center Director Anna Schauer said, "It's great to see things all come together: the weapon design, the test preparation, the aircraft, the range and the people who made it happen."

The Trump administration has given the U.S. military significantly more leeway to use whatever means it sees fit in the fight against radical Islamic terrorism, senior officials say, in stark contrast to the Obama administration.

“There’s nothing formal, but it is beginning to take shape,” a senior U.S. defense told The Wall Street Journal. “There is a sense among these commanders that they are able to do a bit more — and so they are.”

President Trump’s new approach is perhaps best demonstrated in the U.S. decision to drop the largest non-nuclear device in the military’s arsenal — “the mother of all bombs” — on the Islamic State in Afghanistan Thursday. The blast ignited a media sensation, and killed nearly 100 ISIS fighters.

“It’s not the same as it was, you don’t have to ask us before you drop a MOAB,” a senior military official told TheWSJ, using the acronym for the large bomb. “Technically there’s no piece of paper that says you have to ask the president to drop a MOAB. But last year this time, the way [things were] meant, ‘I’m going to drop a MOAB, better let the White House know.'”

If North Korea crosses Beijing’s “bottom line,” China may bomb its neighbor.

China warns the North’s nuclear activities must not jeopardize northeastern China. If North Korea negatively impacts China with its illicit nuclear activities, the latter will respond with force, a Global Times editorial published on the news service for the Chinese military stressed.

“China has a bottom line that it will protect at all costs, that is, the security and stability of northeast China,” the report stated. “If the bottom line is touched, China will employ all means available including the military means to strike back … By that time, it is not an issue of discussion whether China acquiesces in the US’ blows, but the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will launch attacks [on] DPRK nuclear facilities on its own.”

The northeastern provinces of Liaoning and Jilin border North Korea. Together with three other provinces, these provinces make up the Northern Theater Command.

With the number of commercial drones expected to soar into the millions in the next few years, it spells opportunity for avionics shops and budding drone mechanics who could secure lucrative careers repairing aircraft. And it won't take a four-year college degree.

A community college in northwestern Minnesota that has been teaching unmanned aircraft maintenance for larger military-type drones is expanding its program to include smaller drone repair. Officials at Northland Community and Technical College are promising a high-paying job after just one or two years.

A new book has come out written by Robert O’Neill, the SEAL Team Six soldier who took out Osama bin Laden. And he has a really great explanation for why we never saw pictures of a deceased bin Laden. O’Neill and his unnamed point man made their way to the third floor of the compound where Osama was holed up that fateful night. This was immediately after taking out bin Laden’s son. Osama was in his bedroom. The point man tackled two women just in case they were rigged with explosives. O’Neill aimed his gun over one of the women’s shoulders and fired at bin Laden’s head. He split it wide open and shot once more into it just for insurance. At least he was thorough. I like that in a SEAL.